Chapter54
Sunny
Iwalked into theBulletin’sconcrete brutalist monstrosity at London Bridge. I’d tried calling Ludo at least twenty times on my way to work. I kept getting his voicemail, and I refused to leave what I wanted to say in a message. I wanted him to hear the words coming out of my mouth. I wanted to hear his response. To be fair, I wanted to lamp him. The newsroom was humming. Cathy was already at her desk. She lookedpressed.
“He’s on the warpath,” she said, nodding in the direction of JT’s office. “How did we miss it?”
I shook my head, unable to even make eye contact with her, let alone explain that we hadn’t missed it at all.
“Miller! Get in here,now.” My shoulders slumped.
“Coming,” I shouted. I plucked my laptop from my bag and made my way to the naughty chair in the chief of staff’s office.
* * *
“Do you mean to say,” JT said, his snake-veins twisting vigorously, throbbing in time with his pulse, “that we had this sodding story, and you gave it to theSentinel?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? I’m not the sodding idiot here, you piss-guzzling shit crumpet. You had the story. You worked on it with your little bum buddy from theSentinel. And now the story is on the front page of that sodding Tory-boy wank rag and not, you may have noticed, splashed across the front page of our own august journal. The one that pays your sodding wages.”
My laptop was open on JT’s desk, cursor blinking at me from the end of the article on the screen, like a relentless middle finger from Microsoft Word.
“Pack your bags, Sunshine. You’re out of here. You’re through.”
My jaw hit the (metaphorical) floor. This was a cock-up. It was unfortunate. I had been stupid. I’d been betrayed. But was it a sackable offence? I mean, I could easily have come in here andnottold him that we’d had the story. Upon reflection, that would have been the smarter way to play it. I refused to beg for my crap job at a crap newspaper from a crap chief of staff. But I did, at least, want to stand up for myself.
“You need to give me three written warnings before you can sack me.”
JT’s eyes boggled. His ocular nerves were probably being strangled by the engorged veins pulsing throughout his head. He was boiling like a kettle.
“If you want three sodding warnings, I’ll give them to you now,” he said. I did not enjoy the look on his face. “Warning number one. You spent company time and resources to investigate a story without informing us. You didn’t have permission. We didn’t know what you were working on. If anything had happened to you, we’d have been liable, and you wouldn’t have been covered by our insurance.”
“I didn’t use company time and resources!”
“What the fire-pissing ball-cyst isthis, Sunshine?” He hit the back of my laptop, sending it flying across the desk.
“Warning number two. You shared that information with a journalist from another publication. A sodding competitor, you shit-stabbing arse-womble. Information we’ve paid for, through your investment in time and effort. And don’t tell me you did it all in your own time, or I’ll get IT to go through your sodding internet history and match it up to your time sheet. So, you better be unbelievably confident if you want to test me.”
When he put it like that, I wasn’tentirelyconfident I’d done it all in my own time.
“Warning number three. Then you went and sodding lost it, you cock-swallowing dickwit, and it made the front page of another paper. Now, do you need me to write that down, or have I spelt it out sufficiently that even the tiny sodding maggot you’ve got crawling around on the hamster wheel you power your brain with can process it?”
It was a complete takedown. He had me bang to rights. JT slammed his fist into his desk, making his computer monitor and keyboard jump—and me along with them.
“Pack your things. Get out of here. You’re done.”
Chapter55
Ludo
It was mid-afternoon before I surfaced from a miasma of grief and checked my phone. Twenty-four missed calls from Sunny. Ruddy hell. He was mad. Two dozen calls did feel like overkill, though. I slumped into a chair in a hospital waiting room that stank of bleach and heartache. Mummy and Father had gone to find some food for us all. Jonty was being surprisingly helpful and making phone calls to people we needed to notify of Uncle Ben’s death. I flicked through my notifications. For all the missed calls, there was only one text from Sunny.
Sunny Miller:Go fuck yourself.
OK, I was prepared for mad. I didn’t anticipate that level of mad. I called him, hoping to explain everything and, when I had done apologising for disappearing unannounced, frankly, get a little apology of my own for such a jolly rude text. It clicked through to voicemail. I tried again. Nothing. I waited a few minutes, then tried again. Still nothing. I sent a text.
Ludo Boche:Sorry for disappearing. Sorry I missed your calls. Bit of a big morning. Can we talk when you’re free? x
